Allies to deploy 5,000 extra troops

Friday 2 January 2009 00:12 BST

The head of Nato has vowed that the "non-US" allies would send at least 5,000 more soldiers to fight in Afghanistan.

Alliance secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen was responding to US president Barack Obama's announcement of 30,000 more US troops in Afghanistan within six months - coupled with a challenge to Europe to pitch in and do more too.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has already announced the deployment of 500 more UK soldiers, and other Nato members, including Italy, Spain, Poland and Turkey, are on the brink of declaring their intentions in stepping up the military presence.

But, crucially, Germany and France have so far made no such commitment.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy hailed Mr Obama's "courageous, determined" speech and said Paris now expected commitments from the Afghan authorities in response to the international effort.

Meanwhile, German chancellor Angela Merkel is unlikely to announce any new decisions on German troop deployments in Afghanistan until a conference on the issue being hosted by Gordon Brown in London in late January.

Before then, the German Bundestag has to vote later this month to reconfirm existing German deployment levels, let alone increasing the German contribution.

But Mr Rasmussen used his monthly press briefing at Nato headquarters near Brussels to rally Nato's European partners to do more and to predict a significant increase in force levels next year - in addition, he insisted, to what had already been expected for next year.

"What is happening in Afghanistan is a clear and present danger to our citizens," he said.

"Instability in Afghanistan means insecurity for all of us. We must all do more... this is our fight together, and we must finish it together. At this very important moment Nato must demonstrate its unity and strength."